Clinton less popular than Trump in key House districts, GOP leader says
Hillary Clinton is now a bigger drag on Democratic House candidates than Donald Trump is on Republican House candidates, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said Friday.
Citing internal GOP polling and research in swing districts, NRCC Chairman Greg Walden said Clinton has become "more unpopular than Donald Trump."
"Hillary Clinton is a bigger drag in our competitive seats than Donald Trump," Walden told reporters at a newsmaker breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "Everything is always a snapshot in time (during the campaign season), but that's what this snapshot in time shows."
While Trump is "his own brand," Clinton is the Democrats' establishment candidate and is harder for her party's congressional candidates to run from, Walden said.
"It's not like Mrs. Clinton is a brand new candidate with no record," he said.
The just-concluded FBI investigation of Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state has added to voters' distrust of Clinton, Walden said. FBI Director James Comey said this week that Clinton didn't do anything illegal but called her "extremely careless" in her handling of sensitive, classified information.
"Americans have a lot of questions," Walden said.
Walden's take on the House elections stands in stark contrast to the picture painted by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officials when they spoke to reporters at a Monitor breakfast last month. Democrats argued that Trump would help them pick up seats in the House by alienating young voters, minority voters, independents, suburbanites and people with college degrees.
"The same voters who are creating those opportunities for us and are making … districts competitive are the voters that like Donald Trump the least," DCCC Executive Director Kelly Ward said.
Polling by the DCCC in 40 competitive congressional districts showed that Clinton has, on average, a net advantage of 9 percentage points over Trump when it comes to the two candidates' favorability ratings, DCCC spokeswoman Meredith Kelly said Friday. She said those internal polls included surveys of voters in California, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania and Utah.
Ward stopped short of predicting that Democrats would wrest control of the House from Republicans, although she said her party would gain seats. Democrats would need to pick up 30 seats to become the majority party.